


Wrath: An Anthology

by tinybuggy



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Gen, everyone is an original character, we left canon behind three states ago
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:55:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 25
Words: 9,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27151423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinybuggy/pseuds/tinybuggy
Summary: Powerful. Pure.The product of a thousand years of carefully arraigned marriages, Vachir Ancile should have been the ideal heir for her family. Too bad about her pro-alien sympathies. And her marriage to a human. And her other marriage to a science experiment in the shape of a trandoshan. And her adoption of a cathar cub of questionable lineage. And--Really, she is quite the disappointment.(A series of short writings on the life and times of Vachir and her family)
Relationships: Vachir/Etana/Lace
Kudos: 1





	1. Characters

**The Family **

Vachir Ancile: Tsis Sith Lord and current heir of House Ancile.

Etana Aceso: Human Imperial. Surgeon.

Lacertia: A genetic experiment commissioned by a Hutt crime lord. Reptilian. Sith Lord.

Amalya: Human Sith. Vachir's first apprentice and adopted daughter.

Sujin: The third oldest. Tsis Sith Lord. Tried to kill his younger brother. His birth mother is Saarnai.

Azaenin: The youngest child. Cathar Sith. Adopted following a raid on a pirate fleet.

Ganzorig: The fourth child. Tsis Sith Lord. The most well-adjusted child.

**House Ancile**

Saarnai: Vachir's younger sister. Taken prisoner by the Jedi

**Other**

Mirren: Human Imperial. Doctor and Etana's oldest friend.


	2. Vachir/Lace, Pre-War: Pyrrhic

It hurts. 

When Vachir flexes her fingers, she can almost see the white sinew tenuously holding her hand together under the bloody mess she's made of her knuckles. 

Boxing gloves are supposed to protect against skin. Not sharp Trandoshan scales that can tear cloth if it rubs the wrong way. And not against sharp, exposed teeth suited for crushing bone. 

She tries to straighten her hand and the pain causes her vision to darken. 

It's not something a kolto patch and a day on once will fix, she knows that. 

Surgery. Hospital. 

Recovery time measured in weeks rather than days. 

She feels Lacertia enter, behind her, and she lazily waves her hand in the air. 

"Come to see your handiwork?" Vachir asks. 

Lacertia doesn't say anything and Vachir waits until she feels a warm breath on the back of her neck before tilting her head back to rest it against Lace's chest. 

"Suppose you'll be going to the championship now." 

Lace takes hold of Vachir's wrist. "Considering it's next week, yes." 

Her thumb brushes against the injuried knuckles and Vachir hisses in pain. 

"Why?" She asks, resting her jaw atop Vachir's head. The black strands tickling her nostrils. 

"Why what?" 

"Why did you do it? You had to have known you wouldn't have gone to the championship." 

Vachir hums in agreement. 

The championship had been a foregone conclusion. Lace had more points. Even if she hadn't had to resort to ruining her hand, it would have been nearly impossible to gain enough of a point lead in a single match. 

She'd had as much of a chance of going to the championship as becoming the Emperor's Wrath. 

"Maybe it wasn't the championship that I wanted," Vachir said. 

An annoyed clicking sound from the back of Lace's throat. 

"Then what?" Lace asked. "A chance to show me up? Was there some important Lord here tonight I didn't know about?" 

Vachir thinks about telling her about the burning inside her that wanted more from...whatever the two of them were. The need to prove herself, to gain the respect of her rival. 

"I just wanted to know I could beat you." 


	3. Vachir/Etana, Cold War: Hell is for--

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Abuse

The door closed with a resounding click that seemed to reverberate throughout the empty foyer. Vachir resisted the urge to press her forehead against the cold metal. It would be a welcome distraction from the new gouge on her cheek. 

Blood oozed out of the wound. Flowing down her face and past her jaw. Dribbling onto her shirt. It would be a pain to clean later, blood always was. 

She looked up, past the stairs to where the hanging ceiling lights still glowed. Etana would be putting the kids to bed right now, still trying to shield them from the realities of their little family. If she went up now, they'd see. 

A burning, acridness rose in her throat and she tipped her head back to look at their darkened ceiling. Seeing and not seeing the wooden beams above her head from eyes that she refused to allow water. 

Unfairness, she decided, was for children. 

Certainly, not something a grown Sith Lord should be simpering about. And if her heart beat a painful rhythm when her parents visited, then, she supposed, that too was love. 

She could hear Etana reading a bedtime story to the children. Her voice, quiet and soothing. 

Letting out a quiet sigh, she stuck her hands into her pockets and made her way up the stairs. 

\---

"Let me do that," Etana said, stretching out her hand with a tight lipped frown. 

Silently, Vachir handed over the stitching kit and sat on the edge of their tub, tilting her head so the light shined on the gash on her cheek. 

Her wife's movements were quick. Efficient. Hardly a wasted twitch of her fingers as she looped the thread through Vachir's skin.

There was a furrow on her brow. Frustration rather than a need to concentrate. Her wife could stitch together skin with a blindfold on, Vachir thought. Her hands were less... Gentle was the wrong word for it. It didn't hurt anymore than it needed to but there was a frostiness to her wife that made it feel as if she was being doused in antiseptic. 

"You're angry," Vachir said, looking at Etana from the corner of her eyes. 

Her hands stilled. Pinkie finger resting against Vachir's cheek. 

"Not at you," she said, lips pressing together. "And stop talking. I don't want this going any deeper than it should." 

She wiggled the needle she held before starting again. 

It was the worst sort of silence. The sort of stretch of time that seemed to linger on and speed past far too quickly at the same time. In-between spaces, her old nanny had called them. 

A final twist of the thread and a snip from the surgical scissors brought the moment to an end. Etana's thumb lingered on Vachir's cheek. 

"I wish you didn't have to see it," Vachir said, her hand moving up to rest on Etana's waist. "It always upsets you so ..." 

Etana's eyes flickered away from Vachir's face. 

"Well... someone has to be upset," she said. "And I can be angry enough for the both of us."


	4. Vachir & Saarnai, Post War: Consequences

Saarnai has seen the list. Read the five hundred names of Sith and Imperials least likely to start another war, wincing when she came across those people from her last life, and halfheartedly agreed with the Council that, yes, this gala was likely to be safe. And yes, the Jedi should make an appearance for the sake of the peace process. And yes, as pureblood and a member of the Order, as reluctant as that membership may be, she should be there. 

(She had tried to get out of it. Truly she had. Surely there was someone else? Scourge, perhaps? 

And she was gently reminded that Scourge, Hero of the Republic, Slayer of the Emperor, Traitor who had brought an Invasion Force to Dromund Kaas, may not be the best face to put on their peace efforts. 

And besides, it was said. The new Wrath will be there. It would be awkward. 

As if the Council had ever cared about that before. 

Saarnai wanted to scream.) 

"You can still back out of this," Tay said, brushing away the wisps of hair that had loosened from her tight braid. 

Saarnai, briefly, leaned into his touch. 

"A thousand guests," he said, lowering his head to whisper into her ear. "No one is going to miss two Jedi." 

It was tempting. A yes lingered behind her lips, her heart ached at it. 

"A lot of pureblood Jedi coming tonight, then," she said, looking into the mirror, at their reflection. 

Her family jewelry worn with Jedi robes. A political statement instead of just the reflection of a lonely woman holding on to the only remnants of home she could. 

(She had, until this point, successfully avoided the one person she wanted to see the most. 

It was easy, in a crowd of a thousand, to get lost. 

Particularly if she were only interested in hiding from one and, she had gotten the feeling, that the one she was hiding from didn't particularly want to find her either. 

And if they ended up dancing at the edges of the crowd, at all times too far away to notice each other, that was fine with her. 

She did notice. It was impossible not to, no matter how far she lingered. 

It was just her luck, slipping away from the ballroom to catch her breath on a, she had thought unoccupied, balcony that Lord Wrath turned to look directly at her.) 

"Sister." 

The word slips out of Saarnai's lips before she can press her lips into a thin line. Trembling. Longing. 

Sees the line of her sister's shoulder stiffen. Her gold eyes narrow. 

"Master Jedi," Lord Wrath states. 

What do you say to a sister you've spent twenty years forgetting? To one you've hurt over and over and, still, when Saarnai had needed her most, had always been there? 

Saarnai knows her sister must hate her. 

The way her lips curl as she takes in her dress and her jewelry (her sister isn't wearing the family jewelry. That too must be a political statement) is proof enough.

(There are two truths that Saarnai knew: 

First, that she was weak. 

"Praise the Ancestors that your eldest is made of sterner stuff," her grandmother had said, as she laid crying on the floor after a fall. 

Elder sister didn't cry. Ever. 

Elder sister wouldn't have even fallen. 

And Second, her sister would always protect her. 

"I broke it," Elder sister says, staring up at their Lord Father while she hadn't even been able to make a sound. 

Elder sister doesn't flinch when their Lord Father grips her wrist and drags her from the room. 

She never does find out what happens to Elder Sister but she always returns the next day, flashing her a thin grin when their Lord Father isn't watching. 

A last truth she adds when she's older: 

Third, she's selfish. Truly and painfully selfish.) 

She makes her way to the balcony railing, looking down into the street, lit by hung lanterns, below. 

She waits for her sister to leave. To pretend that they had not seen each other. So they could go back to the easy lie of not having had the opportunity to speak. 

There are only the faint sounds of the ballroom. 

"Sujin is well," her sister says from somewhere behind her. 

There are some days where she feels glass shards growing in her insides. There are some days she feels as if she is nothing but glass shards arranged in a mimicry of a person. 

Tonight she feels as if the sound of her own voice would shatter her. 

"I thought you might want to know that," her sister continues. "Since you care so much." 

(She will not be allowed to keep her child, this Saarnai knows. 

It was no easy thing to arrange a transport to Nar Shaddaa. To give birth in the back of an, what she suspected to be, illegal clinic surrounded by strangers. 

Home, she would have been cared for by her family. Her sister by her side. Their Lord parents hovering about her bed while Tay paced the halls outside until it was done. 

She would look down at the crying face of her infant and know that this would be her lineage, her legacy. Who would be given every opportunity he grasped for. Who would never know a galaxy without the warmth of his parents. 

This is what happens: 

While her legs are still weak and her infant still damp, she staggers into a private room in a nondescript hotel. Where she waits, praying to gods she has long abandoned, that her sister arrives. 

Her sister does arrive. Sweeping into the room like their Lord Father. 

They do not talk of her returning with the infant. 

They do not talk much of anything. 

"Sujin," she says, gripping her infant one last time before settling him into her sister's arms. 

Emotions twitch across her sister's face before a mask of polite indifference settles across her features. 

"He's no longer yours to name," her sister says. 

There's no anger in it. Saarnai wishes there had been. 

"I know," she says, blinking away tears. 

For a moment, the light dancing across her sister's face looks like regret. 

For a moment, she almost sees her sister say, come home. 

It passes and her sister is sweeping out of the room. 

Hardly a quarter hour had passed.) 

"You kept his name then," she says. 

The wind howls in her ears. Strange that they didn't also move the tree tops. 

"Who am I to take the one thing his genetic donors ever gave him," her sister says breezily.

She will not allow tears to fall from her eyes. 

"The gods know that his fortune began poor enough," her sister says. 

"Fortunate enough to become a slave, Lord Wrath?" 

She surprises herself with how calmly she spits out the words. As vapid and senseless as talking about the weather with a stranger she'd found herself standing in the vicinity of. 

(She doesn't see the tightening of her sister's jaw.

Nor the shame bringing color to her sister's neck.

Nor the old pain echoing through their long atrophied bond. 

There are many things she doesn't see if she pretends long enough) 

"You know our laws," her sister said. 

That she did. 

She wonders if her sister is glad for the sentence. 

(The traitorous part of her whispers: yes) 


	5. Etana & Mirren, Pre-War: All good things

Her caf sloshed in her mug, coming dangerously to spilling on the mess hall table, as Mirren slid into the bench and into Etana's shoulder. 

"I'll have you court martialed for that," Etana grumbled. 

"You're friendly today," Mirren said. "Here I was thinking a night spent with your paramour would make you all happy and satisfied." 

Etana tightened her grip on her mug. 

"If anything had happened, maybe I would be," she said. 

An amused snort to her right made her look up to glare at her friend. 

"Sorry," Mirren said, grinning widely. 

Etana shook her head. Obviously she'd get no sympathy here. Not when the instigator of the mockery had advised her a month ago she was going about it wrong. Advice that was, perhaps, in some ways, not entirely wrong. 

Though she would never have been so vulgar about it. 

"--then you show up to her apartment in a shirt that says 'Take Me, I'm Yours,'" Mirren was saying. "And if she doesn't get the message then she's just dumb dumb and you deserve better." 

Her mouth was already open to reject the plan before she closed it with a click of her teeth. 

Obviously hints weren't getting through. If the first treatment plan doesn't work, then the solution isn't to blindly continue and hope the Emperor shows his mercy. No, something needed to change. 

Mirren's idea had...merit. 

Adas' fourth ballsack, she'd never hear the end of it if this actually worked. 

"I don't suppose you'd already have a shirt that said...that?" 

Mirren's grin grew even wider. 


	6. Amalya, Cold War: The Return

She's allowed in, at least. 

Her father -- the man she'd once called papa without any hesitation -- standing at the doorway of his home, opening the door for her and saying nothing. As eager to allow her entrance as if she were hawking cure-alls. 

Still she enters. Propriety demanded that she make some excuse as to why she could only stay a moment but the need to see her old home, speak with her parents, silenced the voice whispering to her that she was overstaying her welcome. It had sounded suspiciously like Etana anyhow. 

It looked...as how she remembered it. Wooden floors. Peeling wallpaper that was truly a disgusting shade of yellow. Herbs hung to dry over the windowsill. 

If she closed her eyes she could almost hear the sound of her bare feet running across the floor. Her father chasing after her. 

"Everything's right where it was," she said. A few steps took her further into the house. 

That old couch was still there. Corner stitched back together, the wood long been rubbed smooth. It had been ancient when she was a child. 

She touched it fondly. 

"We liked things where they were, my lord," her father says. 

She flinches. 

There's no warmth in his voice. Not like how she remembered. When it had been like a familiar song and filled with laughter. Not like how Etana said 'my lord' to Vachir in that tone that made all of them stare down at their food and blush. 

It wasn't even the spiteful 'my lord' muttered under the breath of some Imperials. 

"You don't need to call me that, father," she says, quietly. She hears her own accent for the first time and presses her lips together. 

Her father was silent for a long time. Long enough for her to start counting the ticks of the clock. Loudly announcing every second passing. How they lived with such noise...

"Isn't that...what you people are called," her father says. 

It's not a question. 

"Not--Not among family," she says. It feels as though her throat is closing up, she can barely squeeze the words out. 

His silence filled the room. 

She lowers her gaze to the floor, blinking rapidly to stop the tears welling up in her eyes from spilling. 

"Thank you for your time, Mr. Saviinas," she mutters numbly before fleeing the house. 

Her speeder is tearing through the grassy plains, the wind cutting her skin, before she lets her tears fall. 

The roar of the engine covers up the sound of her sobbing. 


	7. Vachir/Etana, Cold War: Window Shopping

Her wife, Vachir realized, loved to try on the elaborate dresses shown off in the window displays of the boutiques lining the market square without ever spending a single credit actually buying them. 

"A waste," she would say wistfully as her fingers lingered on a silk trim before turning and walking away purposefully as though she had more pressing concerns than simply shopping. 

Or lack of shopping on some days. 

Vachir caught up with her wife in three quick strides and draped her arm over Etana's shoulders. Her wife pressed against her side briefly, resting her head against Vachir's side. 

"You were resplendent in that dress," she said. 

Etana had stepped out of the fitting room with the care and confidence of an empress. The white and silver of the dress reflecting light upon the warm brown of her skin. A collar of white feathers framing her face in a half-cicle. When she turned, a cape of spun moonlight twirling behind her. Twinkling with a thousand tiny jewels. 

Her wife ducked her head. A blush darkening her cheeks. 

"Keep a secret?" She asked, continuing when Vachir nodded. "I've always wanted wear a dress like that. Ever since I was a little girl." 

"Truly?" 

Etana hummed in affirmation. 

"Oh you know children's fantasies," she said. "Wearing a big, impractical dress to a ball. Being swept off your feet by a strong, honorable Sith."

For a moment, her tone was longing and Vachir could taste the embarrassment afterwards. 

She moved her hands to hold Etana's hips. 

"Sweeping, like this?" She asked, lifting Etana up and spinning, to the sound of surprised laughter and arms holding on tightly to her neck. 

Etana's bangs had fallen out of its carefully maintained wave and swept down across her forehead and Vachir's chest thudded at how carefree it made her wife look. 

She blushed deeply and gently set Etana back down onto the ground. 

"Take me dancing and you'll just make my fantasy come true, my lord," Etana said, squeezing Vachir's hand. 

Her skin was flush from the spinning. Her green eyes -- like emeralds glinting in the sun like the leaves of the jungle after a storm and the sky is clear like -- sparkling with barely restrained joy. 

It's all she can do to keep her knees from buckling. 

  
  



	8. Etana & Mirren, Pre-War: A Coversation over Bubbly

"She's staring at you again," Mirren said, sending a sly smile at Etana. 

Etana glanced up from where she was inspecting the table -- truly perhaps the most interesting part of this gala -- and met Vachir's eyes from across the hall. He wife meeting her gaze before ducking her head and laughing self consciously at something said to her. 

"Hello, Command to Aceso," Mirren said, tapping the side of Etana's head. "Don't you know it's rude to fantasize about your big, strong Sith lover pinning you against a wall during a party?" 

She blushed. Her neck and cheeks turning a rich, dark brown. 

"It's not like that," she said, tearing her eyes away from Vachir and trying to cool down her face with the palm of her hand. "She's--" 

_ Gold chains trailing across the purebloods body. Ridges lifting to reveal delicate pink skin. Golden eyes looking up at her. Adoration and awe. As if she was an Empress --  _

"--She's very proper," Etana said, grabbing a drink from a passing waiter. 

Whatever it was, it had alcohol. Which was all she really wanted right about now. 

Mirren groaned. 

"Really?" She said, shaking her head. "Here I thought most people went for Sith for the passion and the excitement. And you go for the boring one." 

She pouted. 

"How am I supposed to live vicariously through you now?" She asked. 

She yelped when Etana flicked a few drops of her drink at her. 

"Go get your own Sith then," Etana said, sipping her glass. "There's plenty of them here." 

She gestured to the throngs of Sith with their extended shoulder pads and floor length capes. They mostly talked amongst themselves although some of the more forward Imperials had managed to nudge themselves into that circle. 

Mirren frowned. 

"It wouldn't be real," she said. "They'd just be toying with me and it's not as though we'd be able to keep their attention for long anyways." 

Etana raised a brow. She had wondered why Mirren -- always the bolder of the two of them -- hadn't asked the quiet, studious Sith in Claims on a date yet. 

Mirren fiddled with her glass, finger tracing the rim. 

"Does it -- Are you ever scared that she's just going to get bored one day and leave?" Mirren asked quietly. 

Etana looked back at Vachir. She knew, of course, of how many Sith-Imperial marriage ended in cheating and divorce. With the Imperial having to pick up the pieces and facing the stigma of having the sheer gall to believe they could ever capture a Sith's heart for long. 

"I've thought about it," she said, sighing. 

It kept her up at night, sometimes. Looking at the pureblood flopped on the other side of the bed -- drooling on the pillow -- and wondering if this was the last night they would be together. If -- come morning -- she would wake up to an empty house and a note saying it had been fun but it was over. 

"I know how bad the statistics are," she said. "But it's worked out so far and I think it's worth taking a chance on." 

"I'll bet the dresses are also worth the risk, hmm?" Mirren said, handing her a new glass of wine with an apologetic smile. 

Across the room, Vachir was giving her a worried look and the tension around her heart loosened just a little. 

"Well of course," Etana said, laughing. "My vanity was never going to be satisfied on a Resident's stipend." 

  
  



	9. Vachir, War: Echoes of Korriban

"If only we had rescued you when you were young," the Jedi gasped, arm braced against his gut. The only thing keeping his intestines from spilling into the floor. "You could have served brilliantly." 

Rage boiled in her veins. 

They always talked about saving. The condescending, entitled butchers. Never once wondering if their children needed to be saved from them. 

"We know what Jedi service looks like," Vachir said, eyes flashing in suppressed hatred. "Billions burning while you cut down helpless children like animals. And you have the gall--" 

"--not like that," he gasped. "The Jedi don't...we would show you a better way. The right way. Your people could leave their savagery behind and embrace the Light!" 

To become Jedi. To abandon their Code passed from Master to Apprentice. From Mother to Daughter. To renounce bloodlines. Their connection to the Gods and to the Kings of Old. All they were. All they are. Subsumed by the Light. 

The Jedi would rend their souls and call it mercy. 

"There is no peace, there is only passion," she said. "We do not believe in dying gentle, Jedi. My people will never be a part of our own genocide and any Jedi who tries to convince us otherwise will meet the exact same fate as you." 


	10. Vachir & Azaenin, Cold War: Legacy

"What do you have there, Az?" Vachir asked, lounging on the couch, reading the latest update on how Amalya was doing on Korriban. 

She looked up when there was no response. 

Her daughter stood frozen with a large wooden box in her hands. Gold eyes blinked up at Vachir, ears -- too large for her head -- twitched nervously at being caught. 

"...Sujin wanted it," she said. 

Vachir wondered if she should be proud of how quickly Az thought up that excuse. 

"Come here," She said, sitting up and patting the space next to her. 

Azaenin carefully put the box in Vachir's lap before climbing onto the seat. She curled up next to Vachir, almost disappearing under her mother's arm. 

Vachir used the force to unlock the box and lifted the lid. 

Gold glittered as it was exposed to the light. Necklaces with large panels carved with intricate scenes of leaping tukata. Bracelets numerous enough to cover her entire arm. 

"Mr. Spikes needs a hoard," Azaenin said. 

Mr. Spikes was a plush of a Krayt dragon Vachir had bought for Azaenin after she had taken to using her cape as a security blanket. She never did get that cape back. 

"Does he now?" Vachir said, lifting a small earring from the box. "Mr. Spikes should have asked first, don't you think?"

Azaenin pouted.

"Dragons don't need to ask," she said, wrinkling her nose. 

Vachir chuckled, reaching out to ruffle the small tuff of hair growing on top of Azaenin's head. 

"But their little cathar assistants do," she said. "Especially when they're old family jewelry." 

"But you never use them," Azaenin said, reaching for a bracelet. 

Vachir frowned. Her daughter had certainly heard comments from her grandparents. About how it was good she had two older (pureblooded) brothers. Perish the thought that any of their precious estate might be inherited by an alien.

"Mum?" 

Vachir shook the idea out of her head. No reason for her daughter to be caught up in the family drama. Yet anyways. There would be plenty of time for that once she was older. 

"Your mother thinks they get in the way of kisses," Vachir said, ruffling Azaenin's hair and kissing her on the cheek. 

Azaenin made a disgusted noise and crinkled her nose at the thought. 

Vachir chuckled. 

"And I'm saving these for you," she said, taking out two gold earrings and holding them next to Azaenin's ears. 

Small hands closed around the earrings. Azaenin brought them closer to her eye to look at them carefully. 

"There's words on them," she said, squinting. 

"They're the names of our ancestors," Vachir said. "So you can keep them close." 

Azaenin looked skeptical. 

"But--" her ears twitched. "They're not mine. I'm adopted." 

"You are," Vachir agreed. "But the ancestors watch over family, Az. You've eaten at our table, you've swept their tombs. It'd be very rude if they didn't watch over you, yes?" 

Azaenin looked at least satisfied with the answer. 

"Now why don't you go play and we can make some treasure for Mr. Spikes later?" Vachir suggest, putting the jewelry back into the box. 

Azaenin sighed dramatically. 

"Yeah, okay," she said before sliding off the couch and bouncing up the stairs. 

Vachir watched her youngest daughter leave. Wishing that she could stay ignorant about their family forever and that she had the power to protect her from the louder Traditionalists who insisted that the bloodlines were more precious than gold. And if she simply had to adopt, then surely there were pureblooded children who needed good homes? 

She ran her fingers over the box, tracing the intricate woodwork, wondering what exactly her ancestors would say seeing their family line being continued by a cathar. 

  
  



	11. Vachir & Ketrann, Pre-War: Mild Threats Over Bourbon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Vachir pines and plans to do absolutely nothing about it.

The Crossed Sabers, not to be confused with the three other pubs of the same name in the neighborhood, was particularly slow that night. Owing, perhaps, to the lack of vidscreens showing the end of season game being played between Kaas City’s two premier smashball teams. 

The regulars, those that didn't care for the event, chatted amongst themselves in voices almost acceptable at a dinner party. 

They didn't notice, or wisely chose to ignore, the two sith sitting in a corner booth or that the pureblood was quickly turning a vivid shade of maroon. 

“I am  _ not _ a xenophile!” Vachir said loudly. 

Her companion, a red-skinned zabrak woman, grinned widely at her. 

“Really?” She dragged the word out. “Didn't you say that  _ I  _ was your first--” 

“Don't you dare finish that sentence, Ketrann, or I swear--” 

Ketrann took a long sip of her drink, the blue liquor almost glittering in the dark. 

“But it's true,” she said. “Your first was a zabrak. And then there was that twi’lek woman -- hmm what was her name? -- and now you've practically fallen down a canyon for this human.”

She looked her friend in the eye. Gaze unwavering. 

“Face it, Vachir. You have a thing for aliens,” she said. “It's not as though you haven't had the opportunity to date your own species.” 

Vachir sputtered indignantly before taking a large swig from her own glass. 

Ketrann grinned even wider. 

“Shut up,” Vachir said, crossing her arms. 

“Do you find aliens exotic, oh ridged one?” Her perfectly composed face was impressive. 

Vachir's face flushed even redder. 

“You make them sound like rugs,” she grumbled. “I like their personality, okay? Besides...you never complained.”

Ketrann raised a brow. 

“... _ personality, _ ” she said, ignoring the obvious jab at her. “You were the one going on about her sparkling green eyes, and how her nose wrinkles when she's shouting, and how you wanted to touch her face because her skin was so  _ smooth and Stars, Kett, she looked so fragile-- _ ” 

Vachir planted her face against the table. The wood cool against her flushed skin. 

“But she  _ did _ ,” Vachir said. “It was like she didn't  _ care _ I was Sith. The other Imperials are all so  _ scared _ of me and other purebloods  _ know _ what my family is like and…”

She grumbled something unintelligible into the table. 

Ketrann giggled. 

“I'm sorry, what was that?” She asked. 

Vachir lifted her face far enough to send a one-eyed glare at Ketrann. 

“Her eyes really are pretty okay?” Vachir said. “Like someone took an emerald and--”

“--and why haven't you asked her on a date already?” Ketrann asked. “It's not you've shut up about her in the--”

She glanced at the date. 

“--the three weeks since you've met.” 

“You know how my family would react.” Vachir sighed. 

Droplets of liquor hit her skin and she looked at Ketrann, confused. 

“That didn't stop you from seeing me,” Ketrann said. “Or that twi'lek woman. Unless--” 

Was it possible that Vachir saw her as a potential partner instead of a fling? 

She started laughing. 

“Who would have guessed the way to your heart was by shouting at you?” She snickered. “Maybe I should have tried that, hmm?” 

“Oh shut up,” Vachir said, reaching over and flicking her forehead. 

“Seriously though,” Ketrann said, dabbing at her eyes. “You've been pining over this woman for weeks. It's starting to become a little sad.” 

Her friend always trying to be the good daughter. Even if that made her miserable. 

Ketrann shook her head. Glad she wasn't from a family like that. 

“And you moping around like this --” she stood up and circled around the table. 

“--if you don't ask her out, I'll do it for you,” she said, clasping Vachir's shoulder. 

She left Vachir at the corner booth. 

“And you'd better hurry,” she said, glancing back at her. “I'm not half as patient as you are.” 


	12. Vachir, War: Broken Links

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Capture and an Escape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Gore

"So you were the weak link, hmm?" Vachir asked, quite pleasantly for someone chained to the wall by every limb. 

The zabrak -- a...padawan, they called them? -- flushed red. His puffy, red-rimmed eyes welling up with tears again. 

"If I had been there--"

"You would have caused them to fail even faster," Vachir finished. "They left you behind for a reason. What was it? You trip over your feet too many times in practice?"

"Or maybe...since you were so brave striking down a Sith after she had gutted four Jedi Masters--" 

"Shut up!" His shrill voice echoing through the empty corridors of the ship. 

Vachir bared her teeth. 

"Were your hands shaking? Knees too weak so you had to hide behind a boulder the entire fight?" She asked, noting that his hands had clenched together. "Did you need darker pants as well?"

She let out a low chuckle. 

"And to think you're who our parents scared us with," she said. 

The boy let out an enraged scream and swung a clumsy fist at her head. 

Her teeth tore through his wrist. Blood -- warm, metallic -- spilling into her mouth as her jaw tightened. 

She jerked her head back, neck and shoulders burning from the strain. 

He stumbled forward. Mouth open in a silent scream. 

No wonder he had been left behind, she thought. 

She trapped his wrist between her arm and the wall, pressing against the wound as hard as she was able. 

His senses -- some semblance of them at least -- returned to him and he fumbled to free his lightsaber from his belt. 

An arc of blue swung at her.

Vachir grinned. 

They were always so sloppy when angered. 

Her hand gripped the hilt, overpowering the zabrak. 

The blade sank into the wall, melting away the bolts that kept her chains in place. They fell away. Metal hitting the hull with loud clanking.

She stepped over his body and sank heavily into the dining room couch. Her muscles felt like jelly. The burns from glancing lightsaber blows pulsing with pain to the beat of her heart. 

She closed her eyes and wondered why a Master Jedi -- a battlemaster no less -- would have chosen such a weak boy as an apprentice. 

It must have been out of pity, she reasoned. Or perhaps out of a desire for challenge.

Satisfied with her answer, she put the zabrak out of her mind and did not think of him again. 


	13. Vachir/Etana, Pre-War: Electric

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Gore

Etana had thought that the worst aspect of medical training was second year with all of the board certifications and studying that they entailed. Residency, she was discovering, was significantly more stressful. And the number of days where she was expected to know how to diagnose a disease that she had only distant knowledge of was quickly becoming far too numerous. 

She closed her apartment door behind her and groaned loudly. 

Flickering on the light, she stifled a surprised scream at the pureblood laying face-down on her couch. It took a moment for her to recognize Vachir and a moment more to remember that she had given Vachir a copy of her key-card. 

Approaching her girlfriend, Etana crinkled her nose at the strange smell coming off of Vachir’s clothes. Like ozone and burning meat. 

“Hey,” she said, nudging Vachir’s shoulder. “I didn’t know you were coming over. I would have cleaned up.”

Vachir stirred slowly. Sharp, hissing breath escaping her. 

“Wasn’t planing to,” she said weakly. “Just needed to — to get away for a bit. I can leave if you want.”

She tried to get up but her back spasmed and she collapsed back onto the couch.

“If my back will let me,” Vachir mumbled into the cushions. 

“How bad are you hurt?” She asked, kneeling next to Vachir. “Do you need any medical attention?”

Vachir’s hand twitched in the general direction of her back. 

“Electrical burns,” she said. “Can’t get my shirt off though. Arms aren’t working right.”

Etana nodded and took out a pair of scissors. After making sure Vachir was okay with it, she cut past the layers and peeled them away from Vachir’s body. Underneath was a jagged pattern of blackened skin. No blood but that was little consolation. The worst of it would be under the skin. In the muscles.

“Who did this to you?” she asked, horror creeping into her voice. 

“My master,” Vachir said. She groaned when Etana began to slather kolto over her skin. “It’s my fault. I should have tried harder.”

Etana bit her lip to keep her thoughts from coming out. It wasn’t her place to criticize Vachir’s master even if Darth Gharzr’s training sounded less like training and more like a thin excuse to abuse Vachir. 

A comfortable enough silence fell between the two of them, punctuated by the occasional pained groan from Vachir when Etana applied too much pressure on her back. 

“Stay the night,” Etana said, covering the last patch of kolto with bandages. “You can head out, if you wanted to, in the morning but stay the night. I – I want to make sure you’ll be okay.”


	14. Vachir/Etana, War: Premonitions

“Maybe I shouldn’t go,” Vachir said, fiddling with a clasp on her armor. “I’m the Lord Wrath, I’ve enough work as it. High Command would believe that a higher priority came up.”

“Did something happen?” Etana asked, moving closer to Vachir, resting a hand on Vachir’s chest plate. “You sounded confident yesterday.”

Vachir looked away, rubbing the back of her neck.

There was a tension in the corners of her eyes and a certain distracted air around her. She hadn’t slept much last night. Etana could tell.

“No, nothing happened,” Vachir said. “Just – I’ve a bad feeling about this one, is all.”

She tugged the back of her hair.

“It’s as if the Force is warning me but also telling me that I need to go,” she said. She flashed a nervous grin at her wife. “It should be fine though. The Force would tell me if I were in actual danger.”

She hoped, anyways.

“I…If you say so,” Etana said, uncertain.

Vachir straightened up and rolled her shoulders. She needed to leave soon if she wanted to join the mission. Marr wasn’t going to wait. Not even for her.

Etana reached up and gripped the Vachir’s collar. She tugged her wife down and pressed a kiss against her lips. Firm and tinged with desperation.

“Come home safe,” she whispered, pressing her forehead against Vachir’s. 


	15. Vachir/Etana, Pre-War: Leaving

Etana stands at the doorway. The remnants of her life…of _their_ life packed neatly away in suitcases. Their daughter, not yet able to crawl, held in her arms. 

Vachir sits on the sofa, head in her hands, and doesn’t look. 

She’d said nothing the entire time they had packed.

“We have to think about Kaia,” Etana says. 

“I know,” Vachir says. Her hands shake although her voice doesn’t. 

“It’s just that it’s gotten too dangerous with…everything.” They’d had this argument for weeks now. Going in circles until Vachir had finally caved. 

“I know.” Vachir looks up finally. She gives them a weak smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Just go.”


	16. Vachir & Gharzr, Pre-War: Failure

Gold-tipped claws separate her hair, raking her scalp.

Vachir fixes her gaze to the ground. Focuses on the ache in her knees from kneeling on stone floor. On the numbness spreading through her legs.

“I do believe I wanted the boy *alive*,” Darth Gharzr says, fingers moving down Vachir face to cup her chin. “Did I forget to tell you that, apprentice?”

Vachir swallows. A claw glides up her throat, tilting her head back so that she has no choice but to meet her Master’s burning gold eyes.

“Your instruction was clear, My Lord,” Vachir says, quietly.

Pressure on her throat. Thin lines of blood trickle down her cheeks.

“And yet,” her Master says. Her grip tightens.

She hears the screams of the prized servants of her Master’s rivals at night. The ones she brings back alive.

“Forgive me, Master. I lost control,” she rasps out.

Darth Gharzr’s nostrils flare. Her lips twist downward.

“I see,” she said.

Her hand falls to her side.

“Go then,” she said, waving Vachir away. “Meditate on your failure.”

Vachir hesitated before rising to her feet. She bows deeply to her master before turning to leave.

She falls to the floor. A singular scream leaving her throat as purple lightning envelope her legs.

Heartbeat in her ears. Smell of burning flesh. Tang of blood on her tongue.

She barely feels the kick to her gut as her Master steps over her body.

“Pathetic,” she says. “My brother should have sold you when you were born. At least then you would have been *useful* to this family.”


	17. Vachir/Etana, Post-War: Q&A

In the Empire, the war had never really ended. The Republic may have enjoyed a thousand years of victory but to the Sith survivors of the Great Cataclysm, the thousand years was only an unofficial armistice. Preparation for when they would take back their ancestral land from the invaders.

The Empress and the Chancellor signing a datapad was, despite the ceremony and honor guard, was a bit anticlimactic, Vachir thought, staring into the cams from a thousand different worlds, nearly blind from the constant flashes.

“Commander!” They shouted.

What came next? (Rebuilding our devastated worlds)

Would there be a United Galactic Alliance? (She certainly hoped so but she didn’t speak for the Empire or Republic)

Where did Zakuul fit into all of this? (Zakuul needed time to adjust to it’s new status as one world out of many)

(And when did she become responsible for Zakuul? Vachir wondered.)

And a dozen more questions that she didn’t have the answer to.

She smiled and tried to look friendly before shuffling through the doors after Empress Acina.

In private, the semi-privacy of dozens of staffers running around, she switched off her mic and groaned.

“I don’t know how you two do this,” she said.

“By perfecting the art of saying absolutely nothing,” Acina said, unbuckling her ceremonial armor. “They won’t remember anything you say anyways unless it’s truly terrible.”

The Chancellor grunted in agreement.

“A hidden whiskey drawer helps as well,” he said.

They chatted a few more minutes. Comparing schedules and deciding that backdoor meetings to discuss plans moving forward was something best left to their staffers before saying goodbye and leaving for their suites.

The lights were off when she opened the door to her room. A small cluster of candles causing shadows to flicker about and bathing the room in a warm orange.

Etana laid on the bed, a very self-satisfied smile on her face.

“You were great,” she said, rising from the bed and looping her arms around Vachir’s neck.

“Of course,” Vachir said, resting her hands on Etana’s hips. “I couldn’t disappoint my Empress.”

Etana laughed, resting her forehead against Vachir’s chest.

Vachir held her close.

The last few months had been a whirlwind of meetings and preparations. Long days that stretched far into the night and her so tired that she could barely mumble a hello before falling asleep.

“I missed you,” Vachir muttered into Etana’s hair.

Etana pulled her down so their lips could meet.

She moved one hand down and slipped it underneath Vachir’s shirt.

“Did you now?” Etana said, lowering her voice and lightly tracing Vachir’s ridges.

A small groan escaped from Vachir.

“Then show me.” 


	18. Vachir, Pre-War: The New Neighbors

Gillum was surprised when the estate next to his finally sold and the new owner was a young woman only a few years out of academy. Located in the second ring, outside of metro Kaas, the neighborhood was was more popular with older officers trying to get out of the city.

Still, the woman was perfectly lovely, saying that her wife had wanted a separation from their jobs in the city.

“I’m a resident at Kaas General,” she said.

He didn’t at all like the pureblood who snuck into the house late at night and was always gone early in the morning. And disappearing for months at a time.

Of course he didn’t blame his new neighbor. A young couple could hardly be expected to fend off the advances of a Sith Lord after all. Even if the Sith was an utter disgrace.

“You need to stop coming here,” he said, leaning out of his window.

He’d woken up early that morning, roused by a screeching warbler on his balcony, and seen the pureblood outside the house wearing only baggy jogging pants.

The Sith’s utter lack of shame made him angry. If she was going to interfere with their lives, she should at least have the decency to leave before she ruined their reputation as well.

“I’m sorry?” She said, looking up. Her accent was pure Kaas City aristocracy. No wonder she thought she could do whatever she wanted.

“You need to leave,” he said. “It’s bad enough you’re preying on her but now you’re staying around long enough for people to see? Do you just not care about what’ll happen if word gets out?”

She blinked. Gold eyes shining in the dim dawn light.

“Sir, I don’t believe you understand–”

“No, you listen to me.” He could feel anger coloring his cheeks. “She’s just moved into the neighborhood and she’s just started her career. Now folks aren’t supposed to talk, but they do. You understand? Now if you care about them at all, you’ll stop coming around because everyone knows what happens to the folks you people get bored of!”

The Sith silently stared up at him, a stunned look on her face. By the Emperor, he wanted to burn that image into his mind. Probably the only time anyone had told her–

Having said his piece, he moved to close the window and–

“–I’m her wife.”


	19. Vachir, Pre-War: Thunderstorms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Vachir develops her aversion to water.

Thick, dark clouds smothered the sky. Turning the undergrowth black as the deepest caves. Thunder shook branches, high above, and rain, always present around Kaas City, slammed into the tree trunks in great sheets.

Vachir shuddered underneath the roots of an ancient giant of the jungle. Her clothes were drenched and the damp ground leeched the warmth from her small body.

She had crawled under, hoping to get some warmth. Wondering if her father was still looking for her or if he had simply returned to the wall, deciding that she had been weak and stupid to have gotten lost to begin with.

More rain fell with every crack of thunder and stream formed at her feet, water rushing over her boots. The hole she crawled through to get under the roots disappeared. All drowned.

She whimpered, pressing herself against the highest roots, as far from the water as she could manage. Would they find her body?

There were hundreds and hundreds of trees. More than she could ever count. How would father even find her? One little body in a jungle that stretched to the sky. She knew he wouldn’t cry. Father didn’t cry for weaklings.

A small sob rocked her body, drowned out by the storm.


	20. Vachir/Etana: Too Much?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Gore

“Is it too much?”

“M'sorry, what?” Etana asked, her hands pausing from their work in stitching back together her girlfriend’s skin.

“Is it too much,” Vachir repeated.

Vachir twisted her neck to look over her shoulder at Etana. A quick scowl from Etana making her turn back around.

“It’s not exactly how I imagined spending my night off,” she said. Her tone light.

“But if a little needlework is all it takes,” she presses a kiss above the, admittedly rather large, slash on Vachir’s back. “I think you’re worth that.”

***

There’s blood dripping down Vachir’s arm. And her legs. And her chest.

The dark rivulets soaking her clothes and dribbling past her boots until there was a puddle gathered under her.

It’s not all hers, Etana thinks faintly.

In the moonlight, Vachir’s eyes flash from red to yellow as she turns her head to look at Etana. They’re a flat yellow. Colder than Etana had ever seen them.

She moves to walk towards Vachir and almost trips over a body, hidden in the night’s shadows.

Etana had never considered herself a particularly squeamish person but this body was wrong. The chest conclave and…

Oh.

That’s where the blood had come from.

Vachir is saying something. Her face scrunching up in concern.

“Is it too much?”

Yes.

***

She’s ushered the kids inside and seen that they’ve tucked themselves back into bed.

It had been too much to hope for, she supposed, that their children would remain innocent of death. With two Sith lords and a surgeon raising them, Etana supposed they’d been lucky to get this far.

The washroom’s door slid behind her with a soft click.

Vachir was already inside.

Her wife leaning heavily on her elbows as she let water run over her hands. Red and brown swirled in the sink.

“Did that Jedi get you anywhere?” Etana asks, running her fingers over her wife’s shoulder.

Vachir shakes her head and Etana feels herself let out a breath she wasn’t aware she had been holding.

She dips her own hands into the sink. Her hands seeking out Vachir’s.

The silence between them is comfortable and Etana rests her head on Vachir’s arm as she helps her scrub the drying blood away.

“Too much?” Vachir asks.

Her lips curl up into a grin but her brow furrows.

Etana grasps her wife’s hands between her own.

“You’re worth it.”


	21. Vachir, War: Running out of Time

The weight of the building pressed down on Vachir. A twisted, blackened support beam resting across her back, pining her to broken chunks of concrete.

Dust hung in the thin shafts of light streaming between cracks in the ruin.

She was so close to the outside. To sun. To air.

And yet.

Everything shudders from the bombardment above.

Flakes of stone fall into her hair. Stinging at her eyes.

A deep breath as she freezes, waiting for something to shift above her. For more weight to be added, for the metal beam pressing down on her to slide and cut. 

Creaking metal and then.

Silence.

Take a shallow breath. And then another.

Her lungs burned from lack of air. Too compressed to expand even a fraction of what she desperately needed.

Copper in her mouth.

Feels it sliding down her throat.

Her wheezing is quiet compared to the pain.


	22. Vachir, War: Tanks for Nothing

Vachir pounded on the clear walls of the tank. The kolto that fully submerged making her movements sluggish and the metal harness that trapped her in the center keeping her from making use of her full strength.

There had to be some mistake.

_Her files said-_

She presses her palms against the glass to keep the walls from closing in.

Her heart beating violently in her chest.

A numbness spreads from her jaw to her shoulders. And down. To her arms. Making her fingers tingle.

Why wasn’t anyone here?

_Couldn’t anyone hear her-_

She doesn’t notice the door sliding open and a woman in a doctor’s coat hurrying to her until the woman was in front of the tank, touching the glass with her fingers.

Green eyes. Brown skin.

Etana.

 _Wife_.

Floating in kolto, she can’t hear what Etana is saying.

But her lips makes shapes that look like:

_I’m sorry._

And

_You’re going to be okay._

And when the anaesthesia finally floods her veins and everything goes black, Vachir can almost believe her.


	23. Azaenin, War: Invasion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Gore, Child Death

“You’re injured,” the damnable Jedi said, the cyan glow from his lightsaber throwing harsh shadows through the tomb. “Come out, surrender yourself. There’s no reason to hide any longer, all of your Masters are being killed as we speak.”

His footsteps echo closer and Azaenin presses harder against the base of the statue. Curling in a tight ball into the small space between the stone of the statue and the stone of the tomb.

The remains of what used to be her right arm throbs, lancing pain up her arm and she bites through her lip to keep from whimpering.

Leave, just leave, she thinks.

“Do you think you’ll be welcomed back, missing an arm, after failing to save yourself?” His voice grows quieter. “You can’t be older than twelve-”

 _Fifteen_.

“-you’re still young enough to be saved.”

Lies.

She can see the boy in her group, small for his age, like her. A few inches shorter, a few months younger.

His dead eyes staring at the orange Korriban sky.

Smelling of charred meat.

“The pain of the Dark Side, you can get away from all of it. No matter how powerful your Masters might be, they cannot harm you if you come with us.”

His footsteps grow closer and she holds her breath.

Leave. _Leave_.

“Whatever your Masters have said about us-”

What had mother said?

That they were the people of the Sun. That the Force was an extension of of their will upon the universe and who would dare deny the Sun.

_“Now,” her mother had said, planting her feet firmly on the ground. “Move me.”_

Pale blue eyes stare down at her.

“Ah! There you are.”

Her head snaps up. Shoulders square.

**_“Leave.”_ **


	24. Etana/Lacertia, War Era: Dragon Scales

“You clipped your claws,” Etana said, shifting so her cheek rested against Lacertia’s thigh.

The thick, mossy green scales running along the outside of the trandoshan’s thigh was rough against Etana’s skin. It reminded her of cool plaster and in the warm summer, when the cooling system struggled to keep the rooms at a comfortable temperature, Etana though it was quite possibly the most comfortable pillow she had.

Lacertia ran her claws through Etana’s hair. “They were getting long and I was afraid they’d start hurting you.”

“I’m not fragile, you know,” she said, shifting so she could press her lips against the soft scales that covered Lacertia’s stomach.

The tremble of Lacertia’s muscles underneath and a hitch in her breathing made Etana smile.

“You humans cut too easily.”

Her thumb rubbed circles on Etana’s hip. Light, as though she was using a feather rather than natural weapon.

Etana had seen Lacertia rip through durasteel with those claws. When some mercenaries had tried to kidnap their children. The ones who hadn’t died immediately from the sheer force of Vachir slamming their bodies into the ground were torn to pieces. Armor shredded and deep gouges left on the floor.

The potential for brutality and Lacertia’s gentleness made her shiver.

Her friends might, possibly, have a point, she reflected as she brought her hand up to trace Lacertia’s exposed teeth. That she had A Type.

“Well, we can’t all have scales, love.”


	25. Sujin, War Era: The Disaster Son

It was always warm on Nar Shaddaa. The great factories and gnarled pipes that made up the guts of the smuggler’s moon pumping exhaust and waste into the air, layering a thick cover of smog across the entire sky and making the air taste sweet and putrid. The scent clung to the lower levels. To the walls and the clothes and the very skin of those unlucky enough to have been forced to live far beneath the neon of the Hutt’s pleasure palaces.

Sujin covered his mouth with a ragged scarf, wrapping it tight around his head and face. It covered his pureblood features, the spikes and ridges on his face that he had once been so proud of, and kept out the worst of the smells.

He coughed into his scarf and kept his eyes lowered as he walked swiftly through the streets, trying not to bump into any of the other people on the street. Here anything could start a fight. A lesson he had learned painfully during his first few nights.

A flickering industrial spotlight illuminated the shell of a warehouse. The walls rusting away and the roof buckling from years of abandonment. Sujin walked around to the side of the warehouse where the entire wall had been reclaimed by thick vines erupting from cracks in the foundation.

Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, he let the Force ripple through him. The raw emptiness of where he had once been bonded with his family festered in his throat as he pushed the energy through his fingers and towards the vines.

Slowly, the vines shifted, revealing a sheet of metal leaning against the wall.

Sujin leaned against the vines, trembling. He hated using the Force. Every time, the emptiness was torn open. The spaces in his soul where his mothers had been. His siblings. His little brother. A constant reminder of his mistake. That he had been the one to tear those bonds away when he struck down his little brother and fled like the coward he was. Not strong enough to stand judgement. Too weak to look into the eyes of his dying brother.

Nar Shaddaa was where people like him disappeared to.

An entire moon of people running from their past. No laws except for the Hutts and their gangs.

No accusatory stares or blood seeping into wooden floor panels so dark at night that it looked more like tar.

There were only ghosts here.

It’s what people like him deserved, he thought, lifting the sheet of metal and revealing a hole in the wall.

He bent down and stepped through the hole, covering it with the metal sheet behind him. The rustling of leaves and creaking of the walls sounded as the vines moved back to their original position, hiding the entrance to the warehouse.

From inside, he could hear the crying of his infant son. A pink little thing with a tuff of white hair. Ridges on his face already presenting themselves and bright blue eyes that make it clear to anyone who looked that he wasn’t only pureblood. He would be a striking lad once he grew up. Sujin was sure about that.

It made his chest tighten.

His son should be playing under the protective spires of Kaas City. Should grow up proud of his ridges and surrounded by dozens of cousins and two doting grandparents.

Not lying in a box alone and hungry.

He reached into his shirt for a bottle of milk. It had cost almost half a days’ wages, the price for clean milk going up every time he needed to buy more.

It wouldn’t be enough. His son would still go hungry tonight like so many other nights and there was nothing else he could do. Not on Nar Shaddaa.


End file.
